Lots to do means less time to post

It's been nearly a week since I've posted anything because our lives have been go, go, go!!  Let me sum up each day since the last post:

Friday: anesthesia pre-op appointment, during which Emma pulled out all her tricks, smiles, faces, and waves to get people to pay attention to her
Saturday: chore day at home
Sunday: Russell left for the NASCAR race in Charlotte (blech.  NASCAR.)  Emma, my mom, and I visited relatives in Gaffney, shopped at the outlets, and ate at Cracker Barrel.  At Cracker Barrel, Emma ate green beans (mashed up of course), small bites of grilled chicken tenderloin, and small bites of biscuit.  She did such a great job eating adult food!  Emma was exhausted but then got her second wind around 9 pm, after only napping a total of 45 minutes all day. She finally knocked out at 11:30...such an odd day for her, but she was an absolute delight nonetheless.
Monday: slept in with Emma since she was a night owl.  More chores.  Flipped out when Daddy came home.
Tuesday: work, work, work for me.  My long summer days officially started today - around 9 or 10 hours every day for 11 straight weeks, with one day off.  Play, play, play for Emma.  Shriner's visit.  See below.
Wednesday:  BIG. DAY.  MRI.  See below.

As for the "see belows"...we thought Emma might have a bladder infection, which would be horrible news since one more bladder infection probably means that her bladder isn't fully emptying on its own.  Emma was on antibiotics from sometime in the fall until April.  If an infection came back, we were probably going to have to start cathing her every day to make sure her bladder empties.  That was one thing I did NOT want to add to her list of problems.  Many, many kids with spina bifida have urological issues, but so far Emma has dodged that bullet.  The wonderful people at Shriner's got us in for a urinalysis (sp? too tired to look it up), which came up negative!!  Jean Brown, nurse extraordinaire, commended us for calling them to check it out because overlooking a bladder infection can be catastrophic for kids with spina bifida.

Second "see below": Emma had 3 MRI's and a cerebral spinal fluid study in one visit this morning.  These were scary tests not because of what they are, but because of what they required of Emma.  She had to first be sedated with gas in order for an IV to be put in.  That took 15 attempts.  Yep, 15 red dots.  15 blue bruises.  The top of both her hands, both her wrists, the inside of both her elbows, all over both her ankles.  The final IV went in her right ankle.  She had a breathing tube placed down her throat, and she was under anesthesia for about an hour while the MRI technicians did the scans.  Then Emma was extubated and came out of the anesthesia.  When they called me and Russell back to see her, she was crying and was having trouble getting a healthy breath.  We could definitely tell she had had a breathing tube down her throat by the coughing, raspy crying, and sound of gook, for lack of a better word, in her throat.  She got much better in about 30 minutes after being held by Daddy (probably the best medicine of all) and having a bottle.  We were told she probably wouldn't be herself for 24 hours.  Two hours after Emma came out of the anesthesia, she was definitely back to her old self - smiling, waving, flirting, talking, etc.  What a little trooper.

We'll get the results of the MRI next Thursday when we visit Dr. Troup.  He will tell us how her Chiari II malformation compares to last year, as well as the spinal fluid-filled cyst in her spinal cord.  This may sound strange at first, but hear me out: my prayer is for the very dangerous, sometimes backward progress-inducing decompression surgery.  I would LOVE for Dr. Troup to look at the MRI's and say, "Oh!  I can solve her swallowing problems by decompressing her brain stem!"  The odds of that actually happening are humanly slim, but God is the one in control of it all...so that is our prayer - that He would reveal something to Dr. Troup on those MRI films that shows Dr. Troup how to fix our sweet Emma's throat.

Oh, one more thing - Emma got a new sleep mask today because her old one has to be really, really tight to not leak any air.  But now she has this little knot on her forehead from the forehead pad that won't go away :(  She hasn't been as cooperative with the sleep mask in the last week, so we think it may have something to do with her bruised, knotted little forehead.  Hopefully the new mask will help.

I feel as though 2 weights have been lifted: Emma doesn't have a bladder infection, and the scary experience of recovering from the breathing tube shoved down her throat is over, with a healthy baby at the end of it all.  For today, at least.  I know we don't have the MRI results yet, but as Matthew 6:34 says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. "